Brian Gordon is a cartoonist. He’s also a dad, which means he’s got plenty of inspiration for the parenting comics he creates for his website, Fowl Language (only a few of which actually feature any profanity)

If you have kids, I think you’ll agree with me that it is both the hardest job and the very best job you’ve ever naively volunteered for taken on!

I thought detasseling corn during the summers of ’81-’82 was the hardest job I ever had, until I had kids. Mind you, raising kids is far more rewarding than the $2.35 an hour detasseling earned me. And, I don’t’ have to scrape pollen off my arms…but then there’s that baby poop under the nail thing. I digress!

Shoot, if I hadn’t had kids you wouldn’t be reading this oh so witty and wonderful blog right now. (Stay with me here, the best part is at the end of this post.)

But, the job of raising kids is something that I don’t think any of us were truly prepared for when we had that reckless tawdry Sunday sex to make those little bundles of love. I had no idea! Well, maybe some idea, but to actually LIVE it is completely different than before you have kids and you’re in a state of judgmental bliss—you know, when you used to judge the woman in front of you in line at Target, with the unruly children, and you thought, “Wow, I would never let my kids behave like that!” (Do you know how many times I’ve since been her?) Ouch!

The crap-filled situations, the arguing about nothing, the consoling over a lost toy, the late puke-filled nights, the exit-stage-left trips to the movies or Norstrom, the clean-up-on-aisle-five moments when you don’t know whether to cry or pretend they’re someone else’s kids, the fake phone calls to the Gypsy’s or the Children’s Home (maybe that’s just me), the spilled milk, the uneaten fast food, the accidents will happen and the confusion between your ass crack and an ATM. “I’m not a damn bank!”

All to which are counter-balanced by the gloriously indescribable moments that make all the insanity worth every freaking minute—the smell of your new baby’s breath on your face, the feeling of their little hands wrapped around your cheeks when they say, “I love you to the moon and back, Mamma!”, the sound of their endless giggling and joy, the pride during their first Kindergarten Christmas performance even though they were the donkey, the angelic peacefulness when they are sleeping, the look in their eyes on that first Christmas morning after Santa has come, the first time you let them fall off the couch and hug them so hard it hurts (again, maybe just me), the time you watch them run across home plate after helping the team win the championship, watching them learn the hard lessons, holding their hand after their first heartbreak and watching them pass their driving test…this is why the good outweighs the bad. Hands down, bar none, hardest bestest job I’ve ever done. Truly, a crazy wonderful gift I wouldn’t trade for a million!

Let me know in the comments below which one made you laugh the hardest and what is your most frustratingly favorite part of being a parent. And, you can follow Brian’s fantastic blog here: http://www.fowllanguagecomics.com